Bodybuilding Nutrition

Many who are new to working out want to know about the best bodybuilding diet for beginners. Next to “What to do in the gym?”, the most frequently asked question on newbie bodybuilding forums is “What to eat?” and “How much to eat?”

This is report about a bodybuilding diet for beginners who want to build muscle or get into shape. Taken in concert with effective bodybuilding workouts, this will give you great results in the shortest possible time.

A word of caution. Many bodybuilders worry about whether to take bodybuilding food supplements or which ones to pick. As a beginner, don’t worry about this. It’s more important that you develop a consistent workout plan and follow a bodybuilding diet for beginners first. Once you’ve gained some muscle and experience, you can decide about supplements.

Your Bodybuilding Diet For Beginners

The dieting part is easy. If you’ve been worrying about having to restrict yourself to a strict diet plan and will be forced to give up everything that’s tasty or delicious, stop worrying right now. You must just plan to eat 4 meals a day. That’s it. Four meals.

What’s more, you won’t have to stuff yourself to the point you feel bloated or uncomfortable. The best bodybuilding diet for beginners is one where you feel satisfied when you’ve finished eating and don’t suffer hunger pangs in between meals.

An important facet of any bodybuilding diet for beginners is that you should eat a lot of protein. Let me correct that. You’ll be eating a massive quantity of proteins. Why? Because protein is essential to build muscle.

So the most critical first step is to choose the kind of foods to eat. As a general rule, don’t pick processed foods. Stay away from them. There are a few exceptions to this rule, like natural foods (e.g. salsa, peanut butter and corn chips).

Fruits and vegetables are all ideal components of a good bodybuilding diet for beginners. Just take care to eat them in moderation, and avoid fruit juices – especially when they contain added sugar or come in a carton or bottle!

Get into the habit of reading food labels carefully. Choose the components of your bodybuilding diet for beginners by studying the nutrition facts and seeing if they match your overall eating goals. You have to ensure that your diet gives you enough of carbs, proteins and fats.

Carbohydrates

Good sources of carbs in a bodybuilding diet for beginners are vegetables and fruits, rice and pasta, bread and oatmeal, grits, tortilla chips and nonwhite bread.

Proteins

For proteins in your diet, pick milk, baked chicken, turkey, fish, lean steak and egg whites as good sources of animal fat. Of course, protein supplements can help make up any deficit in your daily requirement.

Fats

Your bodybuilding diet for beginners should include olive or peanut oil, nuts and avocados, cottage cheese and salad dressings. If you have any special dietary needs, be sure to adjust these items accordingly.

Variety is essential in any bodybuilding diet for beginners because otherwise it gets too boring and you’re likely to give up. Incorporate various types of foods in each meal. Go easy on fats because of their higher caloric value per gram. Protein intake should be adequate, but moderated. You don’t have to consume prodigious quantities of protein to gain muscle.

Hydration is an important component of bodybuilding diet for beginners, with your daily requirement touching 1 gallon.

Avoid fried foods and items rich in saturated fats or refined sugar. But if this seems too restrictive, allow yourself a ‘cheat day’ once every 3 to 4 days when you can indulge (moderately!) in the foods that are regularly proscribed.

Any bodybuilding diet for beginners has its pros and cons. Make sure yours is tailored to your unique taste, preferences and needs. Combine it with an effective bodybuilding workout and enjoy the results of a good physique and powerful muscles.

Let experts teach you about bodybuilding diets. Learn about the ideal ingredients of a muscle gain diet, the absolute best bodybuilding food, and how to formulate a female bodybuilding diet.

So you want to know about the best diet for bodybuilding. It’s vital that you learn about this because true muscle gain depends intimately upon what you eat.

To gain muscle mass, you must focus intently upon what you eat. A bodybuilding diet is the most important part of your muscle gain program. Let’s learn about bodybuilding food and how to plan your own effective diet for bodybuilding.

What you’ll read about in this report:

An Overview of Bodybuilding Diets

Your Ultimate Diet For Bodybuilding

How Is a Female Bodybuilding Diet Unique?

Ideal Elements of a Muscle Gain Diet

What’s the Absolutely BEST Bodybuilding Food?

Your Ultimate Diet For Bodybuilding

You’re tasked with planning a meal plan to gain muscle. What should go into the perfect diet for bodybuilding?

Here are a few types of bodybuilding food items you might include:

Egg Whites: Most bodybuilders make egg whites an essential part of their diet for bodybuilding. Eggs have 60 times more protein than fat and are excellent to build muscle mass.

Chicken: Lean meat like chicken and turkey helps pack on solid muscle. That’s why a diet for bodybuilding should include plenty of it. Chicken is also low in fat.

Fish: Another frequent inclusion in any diet for bodybuilding, fish is a rich source of omega 3 and essential fatty acids which can help build muscle. Salmon, sardines and tuna are cold water fish that are rich in protein.

Legumes: Tasty, nutritious and a great source of fiber and protein, beans and legumes modulate insulin response that helps muscle gain and therefore is a useful inclusion in any diet for bodybuilding.

Lean Red Meat: Ground beef and red meat have protein, minerals and vitamins that help with building muscle.

Selected Carbs: Food containing carbohydrates with a low glycemic index burn slowly and provide fuel for muscle growth. Oatmeal and sweet potatoes are excellent choices to have on a diet for bodybuilding.

Hydration: Drinking enough water is an important part of bodybuilding diets.

Supplements: A muscle gain diet often includes protein supplements like whey protein. This makes up for any shortfall in dietary protein. A protein shake is both delicious and nutritive. Make it a part of your diet for bodybuilding every morning.

What’s the Absolutely BEST Bodybuilding Food?

Bodybuilding depends on a foundation of eating right. When you eat bodybuilding food, your system will respond appropriately. While there are many types of bodybuilding food that are popular and tasty, only a few are absolutely essential to include in your diet for bodybuilding.

Among the best bodybuilding food items are:

Egg whites

Lean cuts of red meat steak

Chicken breast

Sweet potato

Asparagus

But there’s one bodybuilding food that’s head and shoulders above the rest – and that is filleted salmon.

What makes salmon so special?

Well, in addition to having a lot of protein, salmon is also rich in fat. With many people adopting bodybuilding diets that are low fat, bodybuilders are often fat deficient. Including fresh salmon in your muscle gain diet can get healthy fats back into your body.

For the best bodybuilding food, Atlantic salmon is quite inexpensive. It should be orange and non-smelly when fresh. Remove all bones and bake it in a preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes. A serving has 12 grams of fat and provides around 200 calories.

How Is a Female Bodybuilding Diet Unique?

A female bodybuilding diet is distinctively different from other typical muscle gain diets in that most women are afraid of bulking up so much that they look like a man or like a bodybuilder. That’s why a female bodybuilding diet is directed towards building muscle to stay lean and healthy.

So what’s in a good female bodybuilding diet plan?

Dieting is important to achieve fitness goals, but a female bodybuilding diet isn’t just about providing enough nutrients but should also do it in a way that keeps you lean, trim and strong.

Metabolism regulators that help burn off calories play an important role in any female bodybuilding diet. Food choices like nuts, dry fruits, cereals and protein bars are good inclusions.

However, macronutrients are also essential for a female bodybuilding diet and foods rich in protein will help grow and repair muscle during workouts, while carbohydrates provide energy necessary for exercise. Some good sources of fat such as avocado, nuts, coconut oil and grass fed butter also are to be a part of your muscle gain diet.

Other unique components of a female bodybuilding diet are:

milk for calcium and

green vegetables like kale and broccoli for folate and other B vitamins

Ideal Elements of a Muscle Gain Diet

A clean muscle gain diet will build muscle, burn fat and promote health. Most effective muscle gain diets are made up of nearly similar elements. Planning meals based on this formula will ensure you get enough of each component and will enjoy better muscle growth.

An excellent muscle gain diet is to eat 4 to 6 egg whites along with a banana and 1 serving of wheat-based cereal. For lunch, the optimal muscle gain diet will include 6 to 9 ounces of lean red meat, 2 cups of pasta and some broccoli.

For dinner, try this:

chicken breast

1 sweet potato

a cup of peas and carrot

A muscle gain diet also needs pre-workout supplementation to provide extra calories and protein before exercise. A cup of cottage cheese with 4 slices of toast and jam work nicely.

After training, your muscle gain diet should provide a top up of protein and calories, which is available when you drink a whey shake with 1 cup of rice. A turkey sandwich with whole-grain bread is another option.

Bodybuilding Diets: An Overview

As you’ve seen, bodybuilding diets are unique for different people and depends upon their dieting goal. Some bodybuilding diets are ideal for muscle gain. Others are optimized for women. And a few help burn fat without losing muscle mass.

You can take this information and tailor your own bodybuilding diets that suit your unique needs.

Remember, what works best isn’t a particular food or routine, but the habit of systematically following your own eating plan, formulating a bodybuilding diet that includes all essential ingredients for muscle gain.

Body fat calculators are helpful in keeping track of your calorie intake and recording your progress towards weight and muscle gaining goals. Meal plans that are drawn from lists of allowed bodybuilding food will avoid the boredom of routine, while delivering all nutrients necessary for muscle building.

All bodybuilding diets will work – if you follow them correctly. If you’re having trouble designing your ideal bodybuilding diets, use the models available in programs like

Many people wish they had some quality bodybuilding nutrition tips when getting started. The reason is obvious. Most mistakes while trying to gain muscle mass are related to not knowing what to eat or when.

Beginners consistently underestimate how many calories they’ll need to bulk up, or how best to consume them. And even seasoned bodybuilders forget the importance of one or more other factors.

Hopefully these bodybuilding nutrition tips will be a quick and handy reference guide to help you along your journey to a healthier and more muscular body.

Bodybuilding Nutrition Tips

1. Eating Is Really Important

The way you eat determines how successful you’ll be at developing the right physique. In fact, it’s probably even more important than how you train! After all, exercise only makes up a tiny sliver of your life. What you do outside the gym will influence your results.

Eating a surplus of calories makes sure that your muscles have enough raw material to repair muscle cell damage caused by heavy exercise. That’s why the best bodybuilding nutrition tips are about developing eating habits more than what you eat.

2. Forget ‘Perfect’, Focus on ‘Good’

Aiming for perfection often leads to giving up when you don’t see quick progress. Remember, your muscles won’t magically appear overnight. These bodybuilding nutrition tips are meant to speed up the path to a better physique, but you should still stick to a program, be disciplined, sacrifice and suffer a little, just as with the pursuit of any worthy goal.

3. Simplicity Wins

Eating a simple diet that’s quick to prepare will make it easier to stick to. If you crave a more elaborate, complicated meal plan, limit it to weekends.

4. Eat Clean

High quality food choices will give you an edge in gaining muscle. Nutrients are necessary for performance and healing after a workout. Many collections of bodybuilding nutrition tips overlook this vital point. Poor choices like fast/junk food or processed foods can derail your fitness program.

5. Eat Often, Even If Small Meals

Some bodybuilders eat every 2 to 3 hours. That’s because bulking up takes a lot of energy. It’s impossible to get all your nutrients and calories in just 3 daily meals. Small, frequent and well-balanced meals are better. Eat high-protein snacks in between meals, also.

6. Eat Prior To Workouts

To preserve muscle mass, you must load up with calories before a workout. Otherwise, your body will cannibalize itself to fuel your exercise session. Consuming high glycemic-index carbs immediately before workouts is a great bodybuilding nutrition tip.

7. Limit Your Exercise

Weight lifting sessions should be less than an hour. Intense workouts are better at stimulating muscle gain than relaxed, lengthy sessions.

8. Speed Up Afterwards

The only time when carbs are desirable as food sources are following an exercise session, when muscles are hungry for energy. Sugar and processed carbohydrates like bagels or white rice are good choices.

9. Watch What You Eat

This, of all the bodybuilding nutrition tips here, is very important – because it isn’t always easy to know what you’re eating. Learn to assess what 50 grams of protein looks like, so you can make sure your servings are the right size, even when you’re eating at a cafeteria or restaurant.

10. Choose The Correct Carbs

Potatoes, simple sugars and other high-glycemic carbs are fine following workouts. Low-glycemic carbs such as vegetables are better at other times of the day. Complex carbs like quinoa, whole grain and brown rice take longer to digest and absorb, and keep you feeling energized for longer.

11. Don’t Succumb To Temptation

Here’s another powerful bodybuilding nutrition tip… Never go shopping when you’re hungry. You’ll only tend to pick up unhealthy foods. Sugary soda drinks or processed foods and pastries are best avoided. Don’t buy them, and you won’t be tempted.

12. Protein Is Important

All bodybuilding nutrition tips stress the vital role of proteins and aminoacids in muscle building. Most estimates of daily protein requirement are too low. Your goal should be to get at least 1 gram per pound of body weight, preferably more. Eating whole-food sources like dairy, steak, chicken, fish and eggs can help you meet this target.

13. Drink Calories

While you’re on the go, a scoop or two of protein powder in a glass of milk makes for a nice supplement of calories and macronutrient. It also tops up your fuel stores and reduces cravings for a snack of unhealthy food when you’re hungry.

14. Cook Food Right

All the benefits of high quality food can be neutralized if you prepare it incorrectly. Grill or broil meat. Avoid frying or using much oil or butter. Shun sauces and salad dressings.

15. Saturated Fat Isn’t Evil

While you shouldn’t over-indulge in them, don’t be afraid of eating saturated fat. It’s good for hormone production and a rich source of Vitamins A, D, E and K.

16. Snack Before Bedtime

Of the many bodybuilding nutrition tips, this is my favorite! A healthy snack before you retire for the night can serve many purposes. You won’t wake up hungry in the middle of the night. Your muscles get some extra nutrition while they heal and grow as you rest.

17. Sleep Tight

Muscles grow during periods of rest and recovery. Sleeping long enough is important to gain muscle mass. If you have trouble going to sleep, try melatonin or GABA.

18. Give It Time

Maybe you’re not seeing results as soon as you had hoped for. Don’t worry. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither will your body. Make minor changes to your workout routine and eating pattern and watch for improvement. Keep tweaking – and be patient.

19. Cheating Is Okay

Nobody can eat clean all the time. So if you cheat from time to time, that’s fine. In fact, indulging once in a while may actually help you adhere to your regular eating plan better.

Choosing the right muscle building diet is not advanced Physics so don’t feel intimidated to learn more about the subject. It is simple and straightforward. All it needs is commitment and consistency from you. It is sad but many bodybuilders fail to pay attention to their muscle nutrition and pay for it when they see no improvement in their muscle size despite spending hours in the gym. Not eating enough impacts the rate of muscle growth. There are some golden rules to follow in order to gain the muscles you desire.

6 Quality Meals Per Day

Choose quality over quantity. It is important to keep your body fueled at regular intervals with quality food products from different food groups. This keeps your body supplied with energy through the day and prevents storing of it as fat. Move away from old ways of eating 3 huge meals a day. Feed your body just the right amount of mass gain diet. Don’t over indulge in junk food just because you are trying to build muscles.

Carbs and Proteins At Every Meal

Experts recommend that you consume about 30 gm of protein and high quality whole grain carbs as part of the muscle building diet plan. Brown rice, grains, potatoes, oats, wholemeal breads are all good sources of carb. Chicken, egg whites, fish and red meat are superb sources of protein. It is easy to include these products in your menu every day and at every meal. Plan in advance and ensure you get the right muscle nutrition to build those killer muscles.

Supplements In Muscle Building Diet

Include supplements in your diet to build muscle. There are dozens of such products that are easily available and which add nutrients to your body. Every serious bodybuilder should include whey protein supplements to their diet for muscle gain. If you have bigger goals and are training at higher levels consider creatine and glutamine supplements. Experts insist that you should consume these before breakfast, just before and just after training session. You may also consume it before going to bed.

Say No To Sugar

Sugary stuff should be avoided if you are serious about your muscles. Diet for building muscles should avoid sugars found in fizzy drinks and honey. You may crave them for their instant burst of energy but you will feel really low once the sugar high is gone. It causes fat to be stored in your body. The high sugar content in these products also cause havoc with insulin production. So keep away from sugar.

Avoid Junk Food

Junk foods are store house of fats and excess salt. Both these ingredients are not suitable for a healthy muscle building nutrition. Same goes for fizzy drinks and a host of other junk and snack foods. Avoid them for better muscle health. Include olive oil, peanut butter and fish for your fat requirements in moderate quantities.

Eat Before Your Training Session

A small meal consisting of quality proteins and complex carbs will keep you fueled for a strenuous workout session. Eat this about an hour before your training session. Complex carbs will provide with the energy needed for training hard and proteins helps with muscle rebuilding during workout. Consume your supplement shake soon after training to supply your body with required muscle building diet foods.

Keep Yourself Well Hydrated

Water is key part of muscle gaining process. It keeps your body tissues well-hydrated and flushes out toxins. Consuming enough water throughout the days helps you to perform your workout without causing injury to your muscles. Keep a water bottle near you and sip on it through the day.

Avoid Snacking

Most snacks are not suitable for muscle growth. They only add junk calories to diet which are best avoided. Plan your meals well in advance to avoid the temptation to snack on fried, sugary or salty snacks. For those sudden hunger attacks keep nuts, fresh fruits and vegetables ready in the food cupboard. Best plan is to stick to 6 mini-meals a day plan which avoids these hunger attacks or sudden cravings.

The Post Workout Shake

The importance of post workout shake cannot be overstressed. It contains important nutrients to help your body rebuild muscle and helps breaks down during a workout. Carbs and proteins in good quantities are needed to get an insulin spike which releases the growth hormone. A nutrient rich supplement shake followed by a meal within an hour of the workout will show dramatic results building muscle fibers.

Consume More Calories Than You Burn

You should consume more calories than what you burn through the day if you want to gain muscle. If you are on a low-calorie diet you won’t gain any muscle. The important rule here is to never stay hungry. Keep your body supplied with regular meals spread through out the day. These carbs and proteins aid in repairing body tissues and help in their growth.

Most folks assume that the secret to huge muscles is pumping iron several hours a day. They completely ignore the other important component of the bodybuilding diet. What if someone informed you that you can in fact gain big muscles by spending less time in the gym and paying more attention to your diet. Most likely you will laugh at such an idea. But it is a fact. You can retain more muscle mass by training less and eating the right kind of food.

Did you know that not paying attention to your bodybuilding diet and instead focusing all your energy on training is a big wasted effort. You will end up frustrated and may even give up on your muscle building dreams. Most people think that nutrition and diet are way too complicated subjects which are best avoided.

It’s time to change this ostrich behavior of sticking your head in the mud and hoping the problem will go away. Instead train smarter. Train just enough to get your muscles stimulated and then feed them the nutrients needed to grow. Trying to grow muscles without feeding them proper food is like sticking plants in sawdust and hoping you will get a good harvest. No nutrition, no harvest. Same for your muscles. No bodybuilder diet, no muscles.

This truth is universal not just for those looking to grow muscles but also, for those looking to increase their fitness and strength levels. So here is a list of top foods that you should include in your bodybuilding diet to gain muscle mass and to become stronger.

Eggs

Another source of high quality protein are eggs. They contain most essential amino acids, right kind of fat, vitamin D, choline and much more. They are also the cheapest of all protein sources. They are a complete food and the best for those on a bodybuilding diet plan.

Chicken

Chicken is an excellent source of high quality protein and tasty too. It is versatile like eggs and can be prepared in different ways. Buy the skinless variety to avoid the fat stored under the skin. Chicken helps in repairing muscle, building muscle, increasing strength, in strengthening bones and in weight management. Order chicken breasts which are cut into single serving sizes and store in your refrigerator. Cook and season it in a variety of ways to enjoy a great protein-packed meal.

Lean beef

Lean beef should play a major part in the bodybuilder diet plan if you are serious about gaining muscle mass. It is full of essential ingredients needed to grow muscles. A 3-ounce serving of lean beef contains iron, vitamins and zinc and is just 150 calories. This high quality protein contains large amounts of amino acids which together with insulin promotes muscle growth. Not all proteins are the same. The high levels of amino acids in lean beef in combination with insulin help development of muscles growth. At 150 calories lean beef provides the same amount of protein as one and half cups of beans but at half the calorie count. This is great news for weight watchers.

Cottage cheese

Cottage cheese is almost pure casein protein. It is slow digesting and is just right for muscle maintenance. If your job or schedule doesn’t allow regular intake of meals including cottage cheese can help. It is also full of other useful nutrients like vitamin B12 and calcium. Choose low-fat cottage cheese to avoid the unnecessary calories.

Whey Protein Supplements

If you are serious about bodybuilding then whey protein supplements are necessary. It is a fast way to add the required nutrients to your bodybuilding diet. It is a portable and easy source of proteins that can be consumed on the go. After a workout, before a workout or for those in between meals when you need to keep your body supplied with suitable drinks whey protein comes in really useful. Professional bodybuilders drink whey shakes right after they wake up, after workouts, mixed with their meals and just before going to bed. If you are just trying to build some muscle then drink it after your workout as it helps is muscle mass gain. But you should not make this your only source of protein. Include other richer sources of protein in your diet so you get a well-rounded mix of all nutrients.

Fish

Fish is a source of good protein and very little fat. It is also rich in omega-3 fatty acids which help in losing fat and ensuring the proper functioning of your body. Your metabolism also improves. So include tuna and other fish in your weekly diet plan.

Oats and wholegrain

Oats have low glycemic index and it is also minimally processed. It has all the micro-nutrients your body needs, you feel full after consuming oats, it has more fiber and decreases hunger. It aids in fat loss and overall decreases your need for more food. It is also a reasonable source of protein. Whole grains are able to keep you full for longer unlike refined grains. It helps promote your energy levels and overall health. Brown rice boosts growth of lean muscle, increases fat loss and improves your strength.

Fruits and Vegetables

You need a rich mix of different fruits and vegetables in your diet as they are a good source of antioxidants and nutrients like vitamin C, vitamin E and beta carotene. They also are an important source of fiber needed to flush out toxins from your body. Include a range of such fresh produce in your daily intake.

Fats

Fats in moderate quantities are crucial for hormone production and muscle development. By including fish, nuts, vegetables, leafy veggies, flax seed, avocados and other seeds you will be getting a rich mix of all essential fatty acids that your body needs.

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